• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2983-2986
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• 2013

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNAs (18-25 nucleotides) that post-transcriptionally modulate gene expression by negatively regulating the stability or translational efficiency of their target mRNAs. In this context, the present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro effects of miR-153 inhibition in the breast carcinoma cell line MDA-MB-231. Forty-eight hours after MDA-MB-231 cells were transfected with the miR-153 inhibitor, an MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay was utilized to determine the effects of miR-153 on cell viability. Flow cytometry analysis and assessment of caspase 3/7 activity were adopted to determine whether miR-153 affects the proliferation rates and apoptosis levels of MDA-MB-231 cells. Our results showed that silencing of miR-153 significantly inhibited growth when compared to controls at 48 hours, reducing proliferation by 37.6%, and inducing apoptosis. Further studies are necessary to corroborate our findings and examine the potential use of this microRNA in future diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.594-601
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• 2010

Azotobacter chroococcum H23 (CECT 4435), Azotobacter vinelandii UWD, and Azotobacter vinelandii (ATCC 12837), members of the family Pseudomonadaceae, were used to evaluate their capacity to grow and accumulate polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) using two-phase olive mill wastewater (TPOMW, alpeorujo) diluted at different concentrations as the sole carbon source. The PHAs amounts (g/l) increased clearly when the TPOMW samples were previously digested under anaerobic conditions. The MNR analysis demonstrated that the bacterial strains formed only homopolymers containing $\beta$-hydroxybutyrate, either when grown in diluted TPOMW medium or diluted anaerobically digested TPOMW medium. COD values of the diluted anaerobically digested waste were measured before and after the aerobic PHA-storing phase, and a clear reduction (72%) was recorded after 72 h of incubation. The results obtained in this study suggest the perspectives for using these bacterial strains to produce PHAs from TPOMW, and in parallel, contribute efficiently to the bioremediation of this waste. This fact seems essential if bioplastics are to become competitive products.

• Research in Plant Disease
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.250-252
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• 2015

The tejocote (Crataegus spp.) is a tree considered to be native to Mexico. The aim of this study was to identify the causal agent of tejocote rust in the State of Puebla. Tejocote fruits were sampled in 2012 and 2013. The fungus was studied morphologically using light and scanning electron microscopy and molecularly using phylogenetic analysis of 18S and 28S rDNA genes. The fungus was identified as Gymnosporangium clavipes on tejocote fruits. To our knowledge, this is the first confirmed report of Gymnosporangium clavipes Cooke & Peck affecting Crataegus mexicana var. Chapeado and C. gracilior in Puebla Mexico.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Emotion and Sensibility Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.44-50
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• 2002

The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is a good method to estimate spectral density, but the frequency resolution is limited to the sampling window, and thus the precise characteristics of the spectral density for short signals are not clear. To solve the limitation, a multiple band-pass filter was introduced to estimate the precise time course of the spectral density for flash visual evoked potentials (VEPs). Signals were recorded during -200 and 600 ms using balanced noncephalic electrodes, and sampled at 1 K Hz in 12 bits. With 1 Hz and 10 ms resolutions, spectral density was estimated between 10 and 100 Hz. Background powers at the alpha-and beta-bands were high over the posterior scalp, and powers around 200ms were evoked at the same bands over the same region, corresponding to P110 and N165 of VEPs. normalized's spectral density showed evoked powers around 200 ms and suppressed powers following the evoked powers over the posterior scalp. The evoked powers above the 20Hz band were not statistically significant. However, the gamma band was significantly evoked intra-individually; details in the gamma bands were varied among the subjects. Details of spectral density were complicated even for a simple task such as watching flashes; both synchronization and desynchronization occurred with different distributions and different time courses.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.6 no.6
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• pp.1689-1706
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• 2012

The preservation of temporal dependencies among a group of processes that exchange continuous media at runtime is a key issue for emerging mobile distributed systems (MDS), such as monitoring of biosignals and interactive multiuser games. Although several works are oriented to satisfy temporal dependencies, most of them are not suitable for MDSs. In general, an MDS is characterized by the absence of global references (e.g. shared memory and wall clock), host mobility, limited processing and storage capabilities in mobile hosts, and limited bandwidth on wireless communication channels. This paper proposes an asymmetric synchronization protocol to be used at runtime in an MDS without using a common reference. One main aspect of our synchronization protocol is that it translates temporal constraints to causal dependencies of the continuous media data as seen by the mobile hosts. We simulate the protocol by considering a cellular network environment and by using MPEG-4 encoders. The simulation results show that our protocol is effective in reducing the synchronization error. In addition, the protocol is efficient in terms of processing and storage costs at the mobile devices, as well as in the overhead attached per message across the wired and wireless channels.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.8
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• pp.3567-3588
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• 2018

In the Internet of Things (IoT) concept, devices communicate autonomously with applications in the Internet. A significant aspect of IoT that makes it stand apart from present-day networked devices and applications is a) the very large number of devices, produced by diverse makers and used by an even more diverse group of users; b) the applications residing and functioning in what were very private sanctums of life e.g. the car, home, and the people themselves. Since these diverse devices require high-level security, an operational model for an IoT system is required, which has built-in security. We have proposed the societal model as a simple operational model. The basic concept of the model is borrowed from human society - there will be infants, the weak and the handicapped who need to be protected by guardians. This natural security mechanism works very well for IoT networks which seem to have inherently weak security mechanisms. In this paper, we discuss the requirements of the societal model and examine its feasibility by doing a proof-of-concept implementation.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.130-139
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• 2014

Due to the unpredictable nature of channel availability, carrying delay-sensitive traffic in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is very challenging. Spectrum leasing of radio resources has been proposed in the so called coordinated CRNs to improve the quality of service (QoS) experienced by secondary users (SUs). In this paper, the performance of coordinated CRNs under fixed-rate with hard-delay-constraints traffic is analyzed. For the adequate and fair performance comparison, call admission control strategies with fractional channel reservation to prioritize ongoing secondary calls over new ones are considered. Maximum Erlang capacity is obtained by optimizing the number of reserved channels. Numerical results reveal that system performance strongly depends on the value of the mean secondary service time relative to the mean primary service time. Additionally, numerical results show that, in CRNs without spectrum leasing, there exists a critical utilization factor of the primary resources from which it is not longer possible to guarantee the required QoS of SUs and, therefore, services with hard delay constraints cannot be even supported in CRNs. Thus, spectrum leasing can be essential for CRN operators to provide the QoS demanded by fixed-rate applications with hard delay constraints. Finally, the cost per capacity Erlang as function of both the utilization factor of the primary resources and the maximum allowed number of simultaneously rented channels is evaluated.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.33-43
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• 2010

The increasing demand for non-sinusoidal currents affects the quality of distribution networks. Harmonic detection is a crucial step in the cancellation of those components by active power filters. In this paper, the discrete cosine transform (DCT) is compared with different implementations based on Fourier transforms, demonstrating their equivalences and the advantages provided by the former. We demonstrate that the phase error in the presence of grid frequency deviations and the transient length are reduced by half in comparison to the discrete Fourier transform. A novel algorithm is developed to provide frequency adaptation to the DCT, taking advantage of its good features. The window width is adjusted in real time according to the actual value of the grid fundamental frequency by means of a phase-locked loop. A technique based on dithering is employed to overcome the limitation caused by the truncation of the window number of samples, so the frequency resolution is enhanced. The theoretical approach is verified by simulated and experimental results.

• IMMUNE NETWORK
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.249-256
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• 2013

How Th2 immunity develops in vivo remains obscure. Basophils have been considered key innate cells producing IL-4, a cytokine essential for Th2 immunity. Increasing evidence suggests that basophils are dispensable for the initiation of Th2 immunity. In this study, we revisited the role of basophils in Th2 immune responses induced by various types of adjuvants. Mice deficient in IL-3 or IL-3 receptor, in which basophil lymph node recruitment is completely abolished, fully developed wild type level Th2 CD4 T cell responses in response to parasite antigen or papain immunization. Similar finding was also observed in mice where basophils are inducibly ablated. Interestingly, IL-4-derived from non-T cells appeared to be critical for the generation of IL-4-producing CD4 T cells. Other Th2 promoting factors including IL-25 and thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) were dispensable. Therefore, our results suggest that IL-3- and basophil-independent in vivo Th2 immunity develops with the help of non-T cell-derived IL-4, offering an additional mechanism by which Th2 type immune responses arise in vivo.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.556-562
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• 2006

Studies on Ag nanoparticles grown on Highly Ordered Pyrolytic Graphite (HOPG) using HREELS provide different results for smaller and larger particle sizes corresponding to Ag coverages below and above 4 monolayers, respectively. For the larger particles, a positive frequency shift with decreasing particle size and a broadening of the plasmon resonance were observed with decreasing particle size, in line with previous studies on Ag on alumina. For the smaller particles, in contrast, a shift to lower energy with decreasing particle size, and a narrowing of the plasmon resonance with decreasing particle size can be found. The asymmetry of the Ag-features present for Ag coverages above 4 monolayers disappears for Ag coverages below 4 monolayers. The result for the smaller particles can be rationalized in terms of change of the particle growth mode with increasing particle size, which corroborates our STM data, as well as electronic effects due to the metal/support charge transfer.